God Blesses us Through Our Efforts

It's true! As we do our best, God will help us. 

Last week we had some time where everything fell through. (8 appointments in 1 day) so we resorted to knocking doors. We ended up teaching one lesson to an elderly man who wasn't all that interested.  He did give us a referral, and when we went to go visit that referral we found the elderly mans son who was an extreme alcoholic and smoker, but stopped just a little while ago. His wife (a less active member who was baptized 22 years ago) and their daughter were also there. We went in and taught the Restoration and marked a baptismal date with him, and before we could ask their daughter she said she also wanted to be baptized!

 We should be having 3 baptisms this week, they are referrals from the family we baptized a little over a week ago who are legally married. They have two sons, one of them is 8 months old and is really chubby.  Since we started teaching them they have read a large part of the Book of Mormon, stopped drinking coffee, and are ready to get baptized!!

Our other investigator who has a baptismal date this week is an 85 year old woman who has trouble hearing and can't read, so it has taken a lot of time to help her come to a knowledge of the truth. It got to the point where we were about to stop visiting her, but we invited her to pray and at the end of the prayer she decided she wanted to be baptized.

Right now the vast majority of our investigators live in Vista Alegre we have been grabbing plenty of buses to get there quickly and to get home quickly.

Also this week was the first time I did a division with a member, which was kind of cool! I now feel confident that I could train a new missionary, after having to carry the majority of the lessons and contacts with a member there to be a second witness.

I want to express my thanks for all of the prayers that y'all have been giving on my behalf, and want you to know that the Lord is watching over me.

I love you all.

I testify that this is the true church, guided by prophets. I know that we may be saved by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that by living his commandments we might have peace in this life and joy in the world to come.

Work hard my friends for salvation is not easy, and there are many needing to know the truth!

The Work is Moving Forward!

Well it is hot here. 
I have only been slightly impeded by the extreme heat, but hey its not like I died. (although I'm pretty sure that Elder Calvacante was thinking that i was dying) but I got a blessing and after a blessing I headed back to work.

This week we worked hard. I love the members here, we had very few lessons without members this week because we always had members saying stuff like "yall are going to visit this person this week, call me and I'll go with you" or "hey could I go with y'all today" or "hey I have a friend I want to visit with y'all" 

The members here are member missionaries, of all of the people i have taught here, 3 have not been referrals

. 

We are teaching a woman and her children, we want to baptize them together, but seeing how the mother is still having problems with the word of wisdom, and the children have gone to church upwards of six times, we are planing on holding the baptism this week. The mother is working hard to stop smoking and using drugs, but it's slow going because she is constantly surrounded by other people using them. We have encouraged her to get away, but she is really poor and so its hard for her to move.

We are also teaching a couple whose children are grown up, and the youngest (20) is the only one at home. They are doing really well, they have worked out all of their problems and are ready to be baptized this week.

We are also teaching their sons, the younger one we just started teaching this week, and he is doing well! He has yet to have any problems with any of the commandments we have talked about with him, and he is liking church.

the other son is legally married! He has two children, he is doing well, but isn't yet as firm as his parents, even though he is starting to have a testimony, and his wife has a firm testimony of the Book of Mormon.

The Lord is reaching to lift us up, if we will but take his hand we can become more then we ever could on our own.

I love you all

Elder Lindsey

1st Transfer! Elder Lindsey Headed for Volto Redondo, and it will be HOT!

Well transfers have arrived. This morning at about 8 Presidente Cascardi called and said Elder Lindsey you are being transferred to Volto Redondo your new companion is Elder Spears.

So I am leaving the Royal City to head to the hottest zone in our mission (and its during summer!!!) 

This week was pretty slow. There were few people on the streets so it was hard to do contacts, and since everyone was partying all week knocking doors wasn't all that fruitful either. 

So on Tuesday at night  we went to Amazonas to talk with some investigators there, and since we had spent the day in Independencia we grabbed an onibus so we could get there without wasting an hour and a half walking, and crossing the highway in the dark is always sketchy. As the bus pulled up to the first stop in Amazonas I noticed that it had started sprinkling, and by the time the onibus arrived at our stop (the second) it was raining pretty hard. We got out of the bus and ran to the covering there at the bus stop, and waited there for about thirty minutes for the rain to pass.

I will start with the wind. 

Even standing up on the benches, the wind drove the rain into us and we still got pretty wet. It was raining so hard that the street next to us looked like a river, and the current went about 2/3 of the way up the wheel of a car.

And I can't forget the lightning.

The wind was bad the rain was awful, and  the lightning made me feel like I was in a castle under siege. Looking out, there was two directions I could see the sky. and there was always lightning visible in them. The thunder didn't stop for about 15 minutes, and there were several blasts that made me feel like I had been shot. Then they echoed in the valley like a machine gun for about a minute.

It also rained every other day, but nothing like Tuesday.

We had several investigators at church, and we had more contact with an investigator that lives in Cremerie. He is a professor in Rio, and he is a spiritual. Generally missionaries don't get into the house of spirituals and less often in the houses of professors, but he invited us in (even though he had several guests over and was having a churrasco. We had previously talked to him on the street, so he recognized us and invited us in, and we talked a little about religion and he invited us to eat some barbecue with him. It is really interesting  many of the views he has about God and religion, and I often learn more about my own as I talk to him.

It's amazing to see the perfection of the plan of salvation, there are no holes, nor fallacies,  It is designed to bring as many of us back to the Father  as possible.

Remember that the Lord is forgiving, that He wants us to repent, even if it takes several tries, or several hundred. And He will help you.

I love you all,

Elder Lindsey

Brasileiros are Obsessed with Fireworks, Happy 2015

With out a doubt. The fireworks start at sundown and stop around sunrise. (they do slow down around 12) Therefore I've been lacking a little sleep this week (and I imagine that it will be similar the week that comes).

So this week we got a stop light in our area. And it broke the next day. So we had a stop light.

Well this week was great, I got to work hard and do almost nothing at the same time. As in everyone is obsessed with the commercial part of Christmas that they completely forget the Christ part of it. We knocked doors, and didn't get into one. We made contacts, and I managed to get 5 addresses. Also we contacted some referrals, and we found one in their house who was leaving (as in we were walking up to the door and they were walking out of the door, so we simply set up an appointment for next week). 

And I'm pretty sure the members are trying to kill us. Every time we talked with a member this week they invited us in and gave us food. I think I gained like 10 pounds just this last week. 

So this week we went to talk with people we have contacted on the streets and met a man with whom we had a great discussion. I really enjoyed talking with him. As we gave the lesson he would bring up any points that were out of line with his faith, and we would talk some more about them, and we would turn to the scriptures to clarify anything that we didn't come to a mutual understanding on. He is probably the first investigator that I have taught that is constantly asking us questions to clarify, and who helps us understand his beliefs so we can have a greater understanding of each other and thereby more effectively teach.

I got to call home on Thursday, which was nice, I loved hearing from my family and being able to see their faces. (and my puppy) We went to the bishops house and called from there and my family got to meet the Bishops grand children. 

Saturday we ran into a lost American couple and we stopped and helped them. We discovered that he is a returned missionary returning to visit where he served! We told them how to get to their hotel, and they took us to dinner, then we took some pictures with them (if I can I will send them home, but its not looking like it)

Elder Conceção and Elder Dennis almost had a baptism this week, but their investigator asked them to change the date to next week.

Also next week is transfers, and  Elder Conceção and I will probably head to new areas.

yeah this was a good week.

I love you all

Have a prosperous New Year.

Feliz Natal! We got a White Christmas Too...With Fog :)

So the reason I am writing today is because we had Christmas conference ontem e (I just switched in to Portuguese didn't I...) We woke up at 5 so we could get ready and go to centro to leave by 8 then arrived in Juiz de Fora at about 10. The conference started at 11 and lasted till 5 (including photos and lunch), and then we headed home and arrived in Petropolis at 8 (not sure why it took 3 hours to return, there was more traffic on the way there) and basically ran home and arrived at 9(02). 

But hey it was awesome to see my group and all the missionaries I know and all those that I don't.

This last week we worked our tails off (including 3 service projects). 

So this week was interviews with president, which means that I do not understand. Somehow it fell through so we had to throw together alternative plans (seeing as how we thought that there was no way the interviews would be cancelled we didn't make alternative plans) 

So we scrambled together some plans, visited some people whose addresses didn't exist, and stopped at a members house to ask for referrals. 

 This week we started talking with the owner of the pastry shop in Independencia, and gave him the first lesson. We learned that his wife (we aren't completely sure if they are married) is less active and has been wanting to return, and he has been looking for more peace in his life. After we taught him he told us he knew it was true, but when we invited him to be baptized he said he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and go to church before he settled on a date. So this week we will probably return and give him the second lesson and again invite him to be baptized. 

This week we also had the opportunity to do some family history (one hour) so we went to the temporary stake center (the actual center was rededicated this week) and filled out the my family histories that unite us then went back to proselyting.

 This Sunday after church the president of the elders quorum called us in to talk to us about plans for Christmas and how we would spend most of the day visiting members, then he said the list (signup sheet) was downstairs and we went to go get it and as we walked into the relief society room. The entire ward started singing "Hark the Harold Angels Sing", and they had a table FULL of food that they gave us (which I think will last a full transfer or two (or three or four). See pictures.

 Then we all said a few words, and some how I broke into perfect Portuguese when I was thanking them and bearing my testimony. Afterwards I had so many people come up and complement me on my Portuguese. I testify of the gift of tongues, the Spirit really can put words, even words you don't know you know into your mouth. 

I know that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Gift, the Perfect Lamb, I know that as He lives, we to may live, that we are made alive in Him. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints is the kingdom of God on earth

I love you all!!!


*****my prayers have been answered, it looks like we are going to have a white Christmas, it is currently exceedingly foggy

With the Relief Society

Food!!!!!!!!!!

New Companion Elder Duarte

Well this week was transfers, and Elder Cordiero left to go to Ubá i am still here.  My new comp. Elder Duarte is really good, he is constantly encouraging me to speak more Portuguese, and is always helping me when I say something wrong. He is also one of the larger missionaries in the mission, and I feel rather safe around him(I'm no longer the tallest in our house and Elder Dennis is no longer the largest in our house).

This week I introduced Elder Duarte to our area (Elder Duarte meet area, area meet Elder Duarte) and to all of our investigators.Literally all of them (so we had a lot of lessons this week) 

This week it rained. If you didn't know rain makes things hard for missionaries because not many people are on the street, so it's hard to do contacts, and no one wants to come out to open the door (the majority of houses here have a wall around them so they have to go outside to open the door to the street) so its also hard to find new people. Also even water  proof shoes get wet in a Brazilian rainstorm. This week we (our house) bought four umbrellas Elder Dennis had to buy two and the other elders one, due to the excessive rains and winds (mine has yet to break). 

In case you have never been in 25 degree weather (about 70) and had thick fog covering everything its really really weird, but such is Petropolis. 

Anyway we got 3 new investigators this week, one was a reference from an investigator, one was from knocking doors, and the third just showed up to church. we have been having problems with all of our current investigators (only one of them is always at church and she needs to be married before she can get baptized) 

We have a young man with whom we have been working with for a while whose parents again refused to let us baptize him, and told us that their son would not be baptized until he is an adult.

So we can only work with his parents and pray that their hearts will soften or that our investigator will continue to go to church until he is old enough to decide for himself that he wants to be baptized.

well I don't have much more to say except that we learned that our ward is pretty close to a split (we only need 2 more Melchizedek Priesthood holders and this month we have a recent convert who should be receiving the priesthood) and we have been working with two of the central people from the Old Quitandinha branch who when they fell inactive many others also fell inactive, and I hope that as we help them they will help us and others in strengthening the church here. so before I go home we should have a Quitandinha Ward.

Transfers but I'm not leaving!

Well my pai is going to oba, and we are getting a new sister in our district, but otherwise our district is sticking around.

So this week has been averaging around 25C (thats around 75) it's also been cloudy and rainy...

So one day we are soaking wet because we are sweating buckets (I drank about 4 liters of water one day) then at the end of the day we are soaking because the sky was clear when we left the house but now it is pouring (but its still hot enough that fires are common somehow).

This week our numbers were pretty bad, all but one of our appointments fell through, but hey we might have another confirmation this week.

The young man who we have been working with for a while is back in his house, and his mother has agreed to let us baptize him after she has gone to church and taken the lessons (she also said we should give her son the lessons again so he knows exactly what he is getting in to). We should have at least one if not more confirmations coming from his family. (pray also that we can touch the heart of his father)

Besides that we don't really have any changes, or big happenings. I am seriously close to just giving up on some of our wards here (there is one we haven't had any lessons in, two we have had one in, and one we haven't had any lessons in for one transfer) maybe we just need to spend more time in them...

Miracle of the week: this week I had a headache, but it only ever hit me as we were climbing the servidão to our house, and always faded as we were descending.

This entire week our lunches fell trough (except sunday). At least in part, they all gave us money, but being with the member 1) takes less time 2) lets us get to know the members better 3) helps us get references from the members 4) gives us an opportunity to help the members with spiritual and physical needs 5) help less active, and non member family members. 6) I'm pretty sure the members get more blessings for feeding us than for giving us money (example we ate lunch with a poor member who when seeing we were to eat with her she realized she hadn't enough money, and at the store she found 50 r$ in her purse, so she used it all for us (best meal I've ever eaten here and probably #3 in my life) and I know that God will bless her more for doing so)

One thing i don't like about Brazilian computers is that the vast majority of them don't like my camera. (I feel sorry for Elder Cordeiro he just got some photos of his girlfriend and is now a little trunky) 

I love you all

Elder Lindsey

 This is a gospel of progression the ultimate end is progression, how do we get there? Daily progression here on this earth. How much have you progressed this week? (i know i could do better so don't take it too hard)